APIAHF Announces Partnerships under New Health Initiatives

WASHINGTON—The Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF) has teamed up with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the New York University Center for the Study of Asian American Health and 15 Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) community-based organizations (CBOs) to help eliminate chronic disease disparities and improve the health of the nation's AA and NHPI populations.

The project, Strategies to Reach and Implement the Vision of Health Equity (STRIVE), is funded by the CDC as part of its Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) efforts. Through the STRIVE project, APIAHF is distributing three million dollars to 15 CBOs to plan and implement high impact, population wide strategies related to physical activity, nutrition and weight management.

At the same time, APIAHF announced it is distributing $400 thousand dollars to eight grantees under the Health Through Action for Children and Families (HTACF) initiative, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. HTACF was launched to improve the health of vulnerable AA and NHPI children and families by addressing health disparities. HTACF builds upon APIAHF’s long partnership with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation on Health Through Action, a groundbreaking five-year national initiative aimed at reducing health disparities among AAs and NHPIs that ran from 2007 to 2012.

"For more than 25 years, APIAHF has been committed to improving the health and well-being of the nation's fastest-growing racial group," said Kathy Ko Chin, APIAHF's president and CEO. "The launch of these projects comes at a critical time when too many in our communities are not reaching their full health potential because of disparities. With STRIVE and HTACF, we have opportunities to help combat these disparities and improve the quality of life for all people."

The STRIVE and HTACF organizations join APIAHF’s two existing funded cohorts of CBO partners. The third cohort includes five collaboratives involved in APIAHF’s Racial Equity Initiative (REI) who are working in Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Southeast Asian, and South Asian communities. The initiative is funded through the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The final cohort involves five CBOs who focus on local and regional efforts to strengthen AA and NHPI health data. These efforts are funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health (OMH).

Across all four cohorts, APIAHF is distributing almost four million dollars to 28 CBOs across the U.S. and the U.S. Pacific Island jurisdictions. Last week, 71 representatives from across the four cohorts came together for the first time in Washington, DC. During the two day meeting, attendees worked to develop and enhance their peer-to-peer networks, learned from one another’s previous efforts and identified promising practices in data development and to promote racial equity.